Dr Appaji: Pharmexcil is taking Indian Pharma to new heights

With the help of Indian embassies abroad, we identify and approach buyers, examine their profiles and arrange their visits to India as well. At the India-Asia Pacific Pharma Business meet, reverse buyer- seller meets took place. In August, we took a delegation of 38 members to Latin America. Also, we invited 70 delegates from 15 Asia Pacific countries to visit India. FDA officials from Myanmar, Phillipines and Hong Kong also visited us. All these delegates are brought at our cost.

How does Pharmexcil engage with pharma companies? We wish that the strength of Indian pharma should be known and recognized. Our purpose is to develop confidence in the buyers that India is a dependable source now for generic formulations and promises quality and affordable prices on a sustained basis. The Government of India has launched a special project called Brand India Pharma to promote Indian pharma at the government level in March in Japan. A logo has been launched "Rx India" with the tagline "Pharmacy of the World".

We are encouraging companies to put this logo on their consignments of goods being sent abroad. However, there is no compulsion for them to do so. We also create market reports. We study countries, market sizes, barriers and drug registration barriers and how to handle these issues for the 3,000 companies associated with us.

Does the organization provide financial assistance to pharma companies?We certainly do. Importing countries may sometimes charge huge fees. For a product, registration prices may vary from Rs 10,000 to Rs 10 lakh. The government has sanctioned a scheme under MAI that reimburses 50 percent of the registration fees up to Rs 50 lakh per annum per company.

If a company has paid Rs 10 lakh to register a drug, it can come to Pharmaexcil, show the payment slip and the original registration document, and get 50 percent of the registration fees up to Rs 50 lakh per annum refunded. The best part is that this scheme is open to all irrespective of the size of the company.